Fallout 3 Q&A

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Bethesda's Pete Hines speaks out about this autumn's biggest title.

By Martin Robinson

After an extended stint in the vault, Bethesda's highly anticipated Fallout 3 has finally begun to emerge into the public eye, and early impressions suggest it's set to be one of the year's best titles. We recently caught up with the developer's Vice President of Public Relations Pete Hines to talk Dogmeat, morality and those 500 endings.

IGN: Has it been a challenge developing across three different formats and working towards a simultaneous release?

Pete Hines: It's never easy, as any developer will tell you, and you'd always prefer to just make it for one, so you're aiming for one thing, but this is our second time around on all these platforms, so we've learnt a lot already from doing one big sandbox game on 360, PS3 and PC, and we're able to use a lot of those learnings and that tech for the next generation of stuff we want to do. It's gone pretty well, and we're pretty confident we're going to have three versions that are all on parity in terms of performance, and certainly from a content standpoint and gameplay standpoint it'll be exactly the same.

Early impressions prove that this is so much more than Oblivion with guns.

IGN: Was anyone from the original game's developer Black Isle Studios consulted?

Pete Hines: We've talked to some of the guys from the original – there's pretty much two different teams – we have talked to some of those folks from a casual standpoint.

IGN: Fallout's got a massive following and quite a vocal community. Have you at any point consulted the fan-base to see what they want from a Fallout game?

Pete Hines: Back when we first announced we were doing it in 2004, there was tons of feedback with people saying here's what we want and here's what we don't want. We're not really into consulting, in that we've got 75 people who spend all day every day working on this game, so we look for information and feedback for the kinds of things the fans are looking for, and feedback from the last game that we made. Even though it's an Elder Scroll game, we've looked at the things they liked or didn't like from that, and we have our own opinions about what we liked and didn't like, and look at what things may be applicable to Fallout. Whether its how fast travel works, or for example how we've changed the way leveling works, so it's very different from Oblivion.

IGN: Though Fallout 3's world won't be as large as that of Oblivion, will there be any way to get around quickly?

Pete Hines: Yes there are ways you can traverse it quickly, using fast travel, but you can't explore it quickly – there's no vehicles, there's nothing you can ride to speed up that journey. We've certainly tried to create the world in a way that you're not traveling huge distances for no reason – there are lots of things that are put all over the place for you to do.

IGN: We've seen the welcome return of Dogmeat – are there any other non-playable characters returning from the Fallout universe?

Pete Hines: There are other things from the original that we haven't spoken about yet that folks will come across. As far as inanimate objects, there's lots of things, be it the skills, the perks, the weapons, there's lots of that kind of stuff, and all the references to that world, the Nuke Cola and all of that is just part of the world itself. If you've played the original Fallouts, you get some measure of pride or enjoyment out of seeing that stuff again. If you haven't played Fallout before, you're not missing out on anything – it stands on its own but it still has plenty of stuff from the last game and the series as a whole.

An early set piece sees you attend your own birthday party.

IGN: Has it been restrictive working with a canon as well defined as Fallout's?

Pete Hines: It's more just a pleasure to be able to work in that fantastic universe, and the canon is not that restrictive to work with. We obviously took it to a different coast for a number of reasons, but the canon itself is a lot of fun and there's still a lot of opportunity to play and we're pretty used to that with the Elder Scrolls, with the canon that we ourselves have created.

IGN: We've seen different factions going about their business in the demo – how persistent is the world of Fallout 3 going to be?

Pete Hines: We don't want it to constantly be wherever you go two groups are fighting each other, as that would get to be a little old after a while, but you see it enough, whether it's creatures attacking humans or different factions fighting each other.